Dear Mama Shellie #5

A pause in the Divorce Story (which I will resume soon) to tell you about last winter and some of the hardest months of my life to date.

Dear Mom,

Today is the Spring Equinox—the day that heralds the return of the light, the bright fecundity of this planet, the budding newness of another season, another cycle, another chance to come out from wintering and begin the burgeoning that will soon yield fruit.

This winter was especially terrible, mom. And like all kids, I want to tell my mommy about the really hard time I had. So before I finish the story I was telling you (about me and Lolly and the divorce) I am going to spend a couple of entries telling you about the really, really hard things that happened to me in the last six months

I wish you could hold me and comfort me as I tell you about these tender things and the ways they have made me ache, but I also cherish the ways you continue to hold and comfort me from where you are. I hope you extend a bit of that to me—in dreams and visions and knowings and sweet synchronicities—so that I can feel your comfort.

Near the end of November, I had a day where every time I stood up I grew faint and started to pass out. It started in the middle of the night when I got up to use the restroom, and then continued that morning as Carlos and I got ready for the day and I helped a handyman with a few tasks I had hired him to take care of on the house.

Other than the near-fainting situation, I felt completely fine. So fine that I kept thinking I must be making it up. Carlos said he’d had this happen to him before and I kind of just assumed I was okay but maybe a bit tired. But when I helped the handyman move a heavy object and I damn near passed out on the spot and had to sit down, I knew something was up. But even then, I told the handyman something was happening to me, and he kind of chuckled and said “looks like you’re outta shape!”

It wasn’t until later in the day, hours after Carlos and the handyman left, that I used the bathroom and noticed that my stool was black. “That can’t be good,” I thought. And then I looked up what might be wrong on the Internet. By the end of that search, it was clear to me that I was having internal bleeding of some sort, and I started getting scared. I have a friend who nearly died of internal bleeding when she was a teen (this is the friend I told you about in a recent letter, Holly Welker, who published an essay about her experience in The Iowa Review), so I knew this could actually be a pretty dangerous situation. I called Ben and asked him to take me to the hospital; he agreed but asked if I minded if he took his kids around to a few things they had going on first. I didn’t mind—I knew it was serious, but because I didn’t feel any pain, it didn’t feel emergent.

But then I started feeling lightheaded even as I lay there in bed. And suddenly I realized that I might actually pass out soon. My first thought was that I wanted to get to the main floor of the house so that if I had to call 911 I could be easily transported to the ambulance. I gingerly walked to the staircase and realized there was no way I could walk down the stairs safely, so I scooted down step by step, hoping I didn’t lose consciousness. At the bottom of the steps I could go no farther—I lay down and realized time was short before I lost consciousness. So I called Ben and told him I was calling 911, and then did so. I could barely think as I talked to the operator; soon they had paramedics coming my way. This was the moment I considered that I actually might die—my body was shaking, and things felt like they were slowing. Suddenly I had to go #2 again, and there was no way I could get to the toilet, so I had to go right there on the floor.

When the first responders came inside (before the ambulance arrived—I think they came in a fire-engine) they asked me all kinds of questions, and as they did so I felt my face get clammy and I started a cold sweat. They seemed alarmed and picked up their pace, and one of them radioed to switch which hospital they were taking me to. It was really scary and I wasn’t sure what was happening to me.

But then, as we waited for the ambulance, things started to stabilize in me, which felt super odd. Their worry seemed to lessen, which was good, but there I was lying on the floor with a living room full of first responders there to “save me” from—for all I really knew at the time—what could actually have just been hypoglycemia, or really, really bad indigestion.

By the time the ambulance came, one of the guys was like “hey, do you think you can walk?” And I could. So maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing?

ambulance

They helped me hobble over to the ambulance and lie down on a stretcher. This was my first ambulance ride and it was pretty simple. Once at the hospital, I was feeling coherent enough that the responders just had me sit down on a chair in the lobby. Thankfully, Ben, who was done running errands, had come to make sure I was all right. And aside from chilling there in the lobby in soiled pants (seriously, that is so gross), I felt pretty fine.

Eventually someone called me back to be admitted. I described everything that had happened as he placed an IV in my left arm. Now, I’m fine with needles—I’ve never had any negative response to any shot or IV in my life—but after the IV was placed, I started feeling the way I’d felt after sliding down the stairs. Cold sweat. Panic. There was a nurse there helping me and all I knew, all my brain kept saying, was that I needed to lie down on the floor. I just needed to get low, like on the ground. The desire to lie down was so powerful and uncomfortable I started crying and moaning, “I need to lie down, I need to lie down…” and the nurse kept saying “no, that floor is dirty so we can’t let you lie down there…” and then I scooted into a prone position there on the chair as best I could. This wasn’t a choice, mind you, this was an instinct—an internal imperative. I couldn’t not try to get into a prone position. It felt so terrible, so extremely uncomfortable, so not okay to not be lying on that damn floor!

And then I saw stars. Then black.

When I came to there were a be a bunch of floating, concerned heads staring at me and there was lots of chatter and beeping machines and someone was calling my name “Josh? You there Josh?”

“Yes,” I said, not very well remembering why I was there.

“You had us scared there for a minute!”

Oh yes, here I am in my soiled pants because I’m internally bleeding. I think.

_________________________

Okay, madre, I’m realizing this story is taking too long and that it’s because I might be avoiding talking about the next really hard thing. I’m not sure how to talk about that one yet. Before I do, I do want to finish this story, a bit more zippily however.

After fainting, they took my situation much more seriously, and admitted me officially. And then a really wonderful nurse, who was only a few minutes from the end of her shift, helped me clean up (and not to get too graphic, but the stool was very, very black and an internal bleed was very evident). As she helped me, I said something like “did I just make a big deal over nothing?” and she kind of gestured towards what we were having to clean and said “no, I think it’s pretty obvious you made the right choice to come in.” Isn’t it so sad that we feel like we have to do that in our system? That we have to justify needing help even when it’s readily apparent that we need help?

Anyway, my hospital stay was actually quite nice. Probably this is an indictment on the busy-ness of my life—or perhaps an indictment of the whole of Western society and its obsession with commerce—but being in the hospital with a potentially fatal bleed in my G.I. tract felt like a “break.” I slept a lot. I got true rest, unencumbered by worry about any number of life-things. I felt like I spent a few days in another dimension, away from all of the duties and responsibilities of parenthood and writing and being a business owner. It was…really, really nice? 10/10? Do recommend? What the hell am I saying right now???

They did an endoscopy, which was a very easy procedure (much like a colonoscopy, both of which involve an IV and then a trip to La La Land, and then you’re done). I also had a CT scan at one point and that was very strange—the liquid they give you makes you really, truly feel like you’ve peed your pants, and even though they warn you before hand, it still feels so real that you’re kind of like “yeah, but I actually think I may have pissed myself…”

All in all, I ate lots of jello, did a lot of nothing-at-all, and as hours and hours passed I thought about life and death and my own mortality. It was all very existential and odd and, it turns out, important because of the things that were about to ensue in my life.

Eventually the results came back: I did have an internal bleed. One of many ulcers had worn down to a blood vessel which had opened. They went ahead and cauterized it during the endoscopy. My numbers were such that they wanted to make sure the bleeding had stopped fully, so after spending one more glorious day-of-nothing in the hospital, Ben and Carlos came to get me and take me home.

Before that, though, I got to enjoy one more hospital lunch (for some reason I love hospital food) and took a long, relieving shower. And even though I felt quite weak bodily, and I knew that I was recovering from something serious, I also felt refreshed and renewed by this “break” in a way that I hadn’t in a long time.

I took it easy when I got home. I slept a lot and gave myself room to rest. And that was important because one week later, on November 29th, something happened to me that was so upending, so shattering, that I still haven’t fully recovered.

But more on that next time.

I love you, mommy, and I miss you, especially right now in springtime as I see flowers blooming and I think of you out in the yard, gardening. Oh how I love the fact that you loved your flowers so much. Soon it will be poppy season and I will think of you every time I see those stunning orange bursts.

Love,

Joshy